Shmupfight #1 : Gradius Vs R-Type

lgb · Post by **lgb** » Wed May 20, 2009 8:10 pm

You know what's better than both of those games?

Danbo · Post by **Danbo** » Wed May 20, 2009 8:10 pm

Gradius is better than R-Type.

Bloodreign · Post by **Bloodreign** » Wed May 20, 2009 8:23 pm

I own far more Gradius than I do R-Type, I like both series, but Gradius gets my vote. Nothing gets an adrenaline rush out of me like Gradius, plus it's a game where I get really nervous that I can make it through some tight situations. R-Type while slower, also gets me at times, but nothing like Gradius.

Ed Oscuro · Post by **Ed Oscuro** » Wed May 20, 2009 8:35 pm

Y'all realize we're only talking about the first game in each series rite

jpj · Post by **jpj** » Wed May 20, 2009 8:40 pm

gotta be original r-type.

my old boss had the US r-type cab in his kitchen

i miss those days...

i think a lot of people here measure a game purely on it's scoring system, but there's far more elements that make up a game. and r-type just drips with it's foreboding atmosphere. love it

saucykobold · Post by **saucykobold** » Wed May 20, 2009 8:41 pm

R-Type, easily.

kengou wrote:Memorize this enemy popping at you from behind or you die! Memorize where to go or the environment will crush you!

Gradius has plenty of this (after the first loop). There are some checkpoints that will kill you off if you haven't memorized a solution.

Edit:
Here's a prime example. Start watching at 8:38.
http://www.nicovideo.jp/watch/sm217250

The player dies repeatedly here, despite being good enough to score over 10 million points. If he hadn't memorized an ad hoc solution to this checkpoint, he would have lost all of his lives.

mr_m0nks · Post by **mr_m0nks** » Wed May 20, 2009 8:41 pm

I agree with Mr West.

kengou · Post by **kengou** » Wed May 20, 2009 10:35 pm

saucykobold wrote:
kengou wrote:Memorize this enemy popping at you from behind or you die! Memorize where to go or the environment will crush you!
Gradius has plenty of this (after the first loop). There are some checkpoints that will kill you off if you haven't memorized a solution.

Edit:
Here's a prime example. Start watching at 8:38.
http://www.nicovideo.jp/watch/sm217250

The player dies repeatedly here, despite being good enough to score over 10 million points. If he hadn't memorized an ad hoc solution to this checkpoint, he would have lost all of his lives.

Just because Gradius has some of this, in the second loop no less, doesn't mean R-Type doesn't have a LOT more of it, throughout the game. Gradius isn't perfect by any means. R-Type just feels a lot more cheap when you die.

Post by **Icarus** » Wed May 20, 2009 10:50 pm

kengou wrote:Just because Gradius has some of this, in the second loop no less, doesn't mean R-Type doesn't have a LOT more of it, throughout the game. Gradius isn't perfect by any means. R-Type just feels a lot more cheap when you die.

Hardly. Almost all checkpoints in all R-Type games can be navigated with the very minimum of weapons - a bare Force Device with no powerups - and if you're particularly creative, you can play the entire game without powerups (R-Type Delta in particular even has a clearance note that acknowledges this). That is in part due to the good stage design by Irem throughout the series (though I don't count some of Final's stages in this regard, mainly the first stage of the game, and some of the sparser variants of later stages).

The same cannot be said of many if not all of Gradius's stage designs, in particular III, IV and especially V. Many segments in many of the Gradius games will rape you of lives if you attempt them without the very minimum of powerups (one speedup, and either Double, Laser or Option).

Super Laydock · Post by **Super Laydock** » Thu May 21, 2009 12:42 am

If indeed it's original Gradius vs original R-t-type:

Graphics:

R-Type by far. Well and inspiring looking enemies (especially the bosses).
Gradius has it's moments, but graphically it's just a bit underwhelming (even in those days).

Music:

Gradius, without even the smallest of doubts. No contest.

Gameplay:

Slight edge to R-type due to it's innovative weapon and power up system.
It's the shootable/able to help defend part of the pod that gives it the edge.
Makes it strategically more interesting.

Fun:

well due to the music I will always love my Gradius.
Both are highly memorizers, and the stages + bosses in R-type are more memorable and varied.

So if for the original Gradius vs original R-type, I'd have to vote:

R-type.

If we were talking about the whole of both series,

Gradius by a large margin. (Salamander and the Nemesis 2 on MSX especially kick every R-types ass). And Gradius III also is an undeniable classic.

CIT · Post by **CIT** » Thu May 21, 2009 1:06 am

R-Type is the better game.

Gradius the better series.

So I voted for R-Type, yeah.

WarBovine · Post by **WarBovine** » Thu May 21, 2009 1:22 am

I seem to be one of the few people that believes that the original R-Type was the best of the series. So R-Type > Gradius, easily.

CIT · Post by **CIT** » Thu May 21, 2009 1:26 am

No, many people expressed the same opinion in this thread.

ZOM · Post by **ZOM** » Thu May 21, 2009 1:48 am

Yeah, in fact I'm a bit surprised about the results so far.
I'm slowly beginning to question the fairness of this comparison; like Oscuro already mentioned, the 2-year difference is huge for a videogame, especially in the mid-eighties.
Even tough I voted for R-Type, I still think that Gradius needs more recognition for pulling off that stuff in '85. Just my 2 cents...

angrycoder · Post by **angrycoder** » Thu May 21, 2009 2:19 am

It would be a much better poll if you picked better games from their respective series. R-type 1 vs Gradius 1? Who gives a shit.

R-type delta vs Gradius Gaiden or Gradius V

nimitz · Post by **nimitz** » Thu May 21, 2009 2:23 am

angrycoder wrote:It would be a much better poll if you picked better games from their respective series. R-type 1 vs Gradius 1? Who gives a shit.

These are some of the best games of the 80's. Show some respect.

angrycoder · Post by **angrycoder** » Thu May 21, 2009 2:29 am

nimitz wrote:
angrycoder wrote:It would be a much better poll if you picked better games from their respective series. R-type 1 vs Gradius 1? Who gives a shit.
These are some of the best games of the 80's. Show some respect.

Like i said, they've been eclipsed by better games in their own series. I don't need to show respect just because they are older. It would even make more sense to compare each series as a whole, rather just looking at their first entries, since based on the comments, thats what a lot of people are doing anyhow.

professor ganson · Post by **professor ganson** » Thu May 21, 2009 3:11 am

angrycoder wrote:It would be a much better poll if you picked better games from their respective series. R-type 1 vs Gradius 1? Who gives a shit.

No, in the North American gaming community at large these are the most famous shmups proper (i.e. not including proto-shmups like Space Invaders, Galaga, Defender...). It's reasonable to compare them.

MathU · Post by **MathU** » Thu May 21, 2009 3:12 am

And we've done that many times before. This thread is only R-Type 1 versus Gradius 1.

MadSteelDarkness · Post by **MadSteelDarkness** » Thu May 21, 2009 3:39 am

Gradius.

For reasons I can't explain.

Kobayashi · Post by **Kobayashi** » Thu May 21, 2009 5:22 am

Gradius.

szycag · Post by **szycag** » Thu May 21, 2009 6:51 am

I can't even think of other "shmupfights" that would be interesting at all. UN Squadron vs. Phalanx? It's just kind of silly.

Arasoi · Post by **Arasoi** » Thu May 21, 2009 6:59 am

Gonna have to go with Argh Type, it's gameplay is better comparatively. Though honestly I would vote the 3 screen Darius arcade cab over either of these any day of the week.

Erik · Post by **Erik** » Thu May 21, 2009 7:24 am

At first I thought that I never played Gradius I, after that I remembered playing this as Nemesis on both the MSX at school many years ago and on the C64. The C64 version unfortunately had a bug and crashed after 30 seconds or so.

My memories of the Nemesis MSX version are vivid however. I quite liked the game, but it was shockingly hard. BUT I did not have the eye-hand coordination skills I gathered today and was not really into shooters those days.

Although my vote may not be completely fair based on the above, I vote for R-Type. I played this on Amiga, Sega MS and PS1 and it is still brilliant. It is an all-time classic with the unique force device, fun levels (although I hate level 6) and nice bosses.

MathU · Post by **MathU** » Thu May 21, 2009 7:47 am

szycag wrote:I can't even think of other "shmupfights" that would be interesting at all. UN Squadron vs. Phalanx? It's just kind of silly.

I know.
Phalanx >> UN Squadron.

THE · Post by **THE** » Thu May 21, 2009 7:51 am

szycag wrote:I can't even think of other "shmupfights" that would be interesting at all.

Well, we can do Darius vs. R-Type and Darius vs. Gradius

Super Laydock · Post by **Super Laydock** » Thu May 21, 2009 8:12 am

szycag wrote:I can't even think of other "shmupfights" that would be interesting at all. UN Squadron vs. Phalanx? It's just kind of silly.

Border Down vs Gradius V

GigaWing vs GigaWing 2

Dodonpachi vs Dodon Pachi DOJ

Scramble vs Super Cobra

come on the list is "almost endless"...

Afterbirth · Post by **Afterbirth** » Thu May 21, 2009 8:20 am

R-Type, becuase it basically had lots of innovations that were rather clever. Namely the weapon system (obv), but subtle things i liked were the way the backdrop came in on L1, The first boss of L1, the mothership of L3, etc.

It did the organic thing better then then Salamander too.

szycag · Post by **szycag** » Thu May 21, 2009 9:16 am

In most of these conflicts it's just making one where there wasn't one.

Herr Schatten · Post by **Herr Schatten** » Thu May 21, 2009 9:36 am

ZOM wrote:like Oscuro already mentioned, the 2-year difference is huge for a videogame, especially in the mid-eighties.

Not necessarily. That argument would only be valid if both games were typical examples of the status quo of shmups at the time they were released. This is not the case. In fact, both games were far ahead of their time, so it's perfectly possible to judge and compare them without taking the context of their time into too much consideration. The things that made them both classics had nothing to do with the advances in hardware, and the gameplay innovations they both came up with came practically out of nowhere and weren't based on any previous development.

For example, Exzisus (by Taito) came out at the same time as R-Type. It's a typical example of what your average shmup looked like in 1987. You can see that the technical side is there, but just look at what was considered decent level design back then. Compare that to the sophisticated stages of Gradius and R-Type.

shmups.system11.org

Shmupfight #1 : Gradius Vs R-Type

Pick your favorite.